MH Help....

[WarDaddy]

I have 70 MH lamp, it has a simple home depot dual end lamp. reflector, I have a nice 20K bulb in it.

the ballast is brand new from Catalina Aquatic.

I wired it up and pluged it in.

Now I am new to MH, I run t5 and VHO

when the ballast fires up is sounds like a Tesla Coil, sound like it is shorting... as the lamp gets going the sound goes away, and things get bright and nice.

the part that really bothers me is that the other lights I have pluged in by it all flicker during this.

Now what is causing this? Do I have the wires backward, what is it, or is this the way it is supposed to work?

 

[H22ATypeS]

Sounds like you are reaching the threshold on of your ciruit amperage rating.

When the halide is turned on it's drawing a good amount of load that there's a voltage drop in the circuit that's delivering power to your other lights.

Try plugging the halide into another receptacle and see if it goes away.

 

[WarDaddy]

Ahhh... I could buy that...

Time to finish that new 20 amp circuit... More fun for the weekend :-(

 

[H22ATypeS]

I say go 30A...that's what I did...you'll be suprised how fast you populate 20As....

 

[WarDaddy]

I will have 1 - 20a and 1 - 15 a, both are dedicated to the tank, nothing else on the circuit.